Hot Cities

About

The challenge of adapting and surviving in an urban world threatened by climate change is the theme of “Hot Cities”, a major new series being broadcast by BBC World News this autumn.

Talking to the experts, the politicians and some of the millions of new migrants to the world’s biggest cities, the series assesses not just the threat from climate change but our response. In 2008 the world reached an important milestone when, for the first time in history, more people lived in cities than the countryside. Homo sapiens had become homo urbanus.

All this has led to a vicious circle. Cities are one of the big drivers of climate change. As cities get even bigger, they drive climate change even harder. And that makes many of these massive urban areas more vulnerable to rising sea levels, violent storms and dramatic changes in temperature.

“Hot Cities” is produced by Rockhopper TV for BBC World News, with backing from The Rockefeller Foundation. Rockhopper is one of the world’s leading TV documentary makers specialising in development, science and the environment.